The Ides Have It

In what should be a major Italian holiday, we have once again reached the Ides of March. Most people have heard the phrase but are not sure of the origin or why we even talk about it. According to the historian Plutarch, a soothsayer told Julius Caesar to beware the Ides of March, which he conveniently ignored. He was stabbed to death by Brutus and a host of Roman Senators. We have the memorable et tu Brute? quote from the Bard as a classic line of accusation.

So what exactly is an ide? It is relic from the Roman calendar. Each month contained an ide. It was the 15th of the month in March, May, July and October and the 13th of every other month. It actually is a Roman reference to the middle of the month. So an ide means that you have made it half way into the current month. Why it occurs on the 13th of some months is beyond me.

So the phrase “Ides of March” have become associated with the foretelling of doom. I had always thought that an ide was a bad event but it only marks a midpoint and does not actually have any other significance. If it hadn’t been for a fortune teller who got one right for a change, Caesar’s death would have been known as another civil war in Rome and not the out of use phrase for foreshadowing of bad things to come.

Icool

Cobb